Every year, thousands of Amazon River dolphins (botos) in Brazil are brutally killed, then cut up and used as bait to catch fish. If this illegal slaughter does not stop, the boto will be driven to extinction. We need the Brazilian government to enforce the law and save the dolphins.
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Every year thousands of Brazilian Amazon River dolphins, or botos, are brutally killed to use as bait to catch fish. These intelligent, beautiful and social mammals are speared and beaten to death with hand-held harpoons, machetes or axes. This is both illegal and unimaginably cruel and must be stopped. If this slaughter continues, river dolphins in Brazil will be gone forever.
We urgently need to appoint local people in Brazil to work as ‘boto rangers’ in the Piagaçu -Purus Reserve near Manaus. These rangers will document and report dolphin killing and will work with the communities who live alongside the river to protect these remarkable, vulnerable dolphins. In liaison with local conservationists, we will work with the Brazilian government to persuade them to enforce the law and we will work with local communities in Brazil to expose the killing.